Govt Must Either Pay Teachers a Living Wage or Show them how to Miraculously Budget the Starvation Wages
12 October 2020
Our current salary, of 40% COLA has been effected, is US$40-US$50. A family of six needs US$240 for accommodation per month, an average of US$600 for fees for four children per term (some even need more), US$50 per month for food, US$30 for electricity and water bills per month, US$24 ($240) funeral policy per month, among a raft of other expenses such as medical aid, medical expenses, clothing, child care, etc. It is clear that teachers are grossly incapacitated and need to be capacitated in order to report for work.
We, therefore, urge gvt to urgently capacitate teachers and prioritise their health and safety so that they can report for work. Alternatively, gvt must show us how teachers can miraculously budget such pittance. No amount of threats of replacement by lumpen teachers or soldiers can capacitate teachers.
To the rogue youth militias trying to eject or jettison teachers from school accommodation (as at Nerupire Primary and Secondary in Buhera), our humble advice is for you to sympathise with incapacitated teachers and allow them to resolve their labour dispute with their employer without your interference.
To School heads be reminded that all outside elements like youths have no right to get into schools without clearance from Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. You are just as incapacitated as all other teachers and you must be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
To parents, government seem to be preparing for a war of attrition against incapacitated teachers. Sadly, we have no solution to incapacitation and we humbly advice you to stop sending your children to school as we are incapacitated.
Other parents have started to take their children from boarding schools and you are adviced to take this noble course, lest you may regret later.
To our pupils please note that we remain committed to offer meaningful teaching but we are incapacitated. Stay at your homes until further notice.
We appreciate a situation where our own children can access our services rather than the current situation where our poverty has restricted us from sending our own children to boarding schools.
Fellow comrades in the teaching fraternity* our incapacitation struggle continues unabated until the government capacitates us. Our poverty and misery have generated our United Front as teacher unions and there will be no defeat no surrender.
We have nothing to lose in this struggle but our chains. We do not eat threats and neither should we salivate at the poisoned carrot of incentives. Never in history should teachers be short sighted but far sighted. Incentives do not contribute an iorta of your pension.
For our profession!
We must
For our children!
We Must
For our dignity!
We must
Engage a high gear of incapacitation as the only way forward
Venceremos
Dr Takavafira M. Zhou(Ptuz President)
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